Astronomers have zoomed in on small loops of plasma within a powerful solar flare for the first time, potentially revealing the fundamental building blocks of the sun‘s violent storms.
The images, captured with the new Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, reveal arcs of hot gas just 10 to 30 miles wide that follow the sun’s magnetic fields. Earlier instruments could only resolve loops 60 to 100 miles wide. Inouye’s images are over 2.5 times sharper.
Scientists believe these so-called “coronal loops” may in fact be the most basic pieces of solar flares — sudden explosions of energy that hurl a torrent of radiation into space and toward Earth.
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